Correlating business workflows with transaction tracking

• US 9,632,817 B2
• Filed: 07/29/2005
• Issued: 04/25/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Yu, Jean X, Emuchay, Nduwuisi
• Primary Examiner(s): Ouellette, Jonathan
• Application Number:
  US11/193,840
• Publication Number:
  US 20070027742A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,288 Days
• Field of Search: 705 1, 705 11-912
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/87 Monitoring of transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/466 Transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

Methods, systems, and products are disclosed for correlating business workflows with transaction tracking, the method including identifying an instrumentation point in a business process of a business workflow that invokes an IT resource that carries out at least a portion of the business process and associating, at the instrumentation point, the business process and the IT resource with a transaction name having business semantics such that correlation data gathered about the IT resource may be linked with the business process. Correlating business workflows with transaction tracking may also include gathering correlation data about the IT resource, selecting one of the plurality of service specific correlator passing methods, and passing a correlator in accordance with the selected service specific correlator passing methods.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for correlating business workflows with transaction tracking by a computer, comprising:

identifying, by the computer, an instrumentation point in a business process of a business workflow that invokes an IT resource that carries out at least a portion of the business process; and

associating, by the computer at the instrumentation point, the business process and the IT resource with a transaction name having business semantics such that correlation data gathered about the IT resource is linked with the business process.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying the instrumentation point includes selecting a new instrumentation point in the business process;

and wherein associating the business process and the IT resource includes naming a transaction with the transaction name.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising identifying the IT resource that carries out the at least a portion of the business process.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the instrumentation point is in a Web Services Invocation Framework (‘

WSIF’

) client associated with an invocation interface.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising gathering the correlation data about the IT resource, including:

selecting one of a plurality of service specific correlator passing methods, wherein each one of the plurality of service specific correlator passing methods are operable to pass a given correlator according to (i) a specific resource invoked by a given transaction and (ii) a given protocol used to pass the given correlator; and

passing a correlator in accordance with the selected service specific correlator passing method, wherein the correlator is a data structure used to pass information from one transaction to another for use in monitoring performance of transactions.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein gathering the correlation data comprises calling the invocation interface at the instrumentation point in the WSIF client.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing the correlation data for the IT resource to a user through a user interface.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising providing, to a user through a user interface, the correlation data for the IT resource in association with a name having semantics for the IT resource.

9. A system for correlating business workflows with transaction tracking, the system, comprising:

a computer processor;

a computer memory operatively coupled to the computer processor, the computer memory having disposed within it computer program instructions comprising;

computer program instructions for identifying an instrumentation point in a business process of a business workflow that invokes an IT resource that carries out at least a portion of the business process; and

computer program instructions for associating, at the instrumentation point, the business process and the IT resource with a transaction name having business semantics such that correlation data gathered about the IT resource is linked with the business process.

10. The system of claim 9 wherein the computer program instructions further comprise:

computer program instructions for selecting a new instrumentation point in the business process; and

computer program instructions for naming a transaction with the transaction name.

11. The system of claim 9 wherein the computer program instructions further comprise computer program instructions for identifying the IT resource that carries out the at least a portion of the business process.

12. The system of claim 9 wherein the instrumentation point is in a Web Services Invocation Framework (‘

WSIF’

) client associated with an invocation interface.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the computer program instructions for gathering the correlation data include:

computer program instructions for selecting one of a plurality of service specific correlator passing systems, wherein each one of the plurality of service specific correlator passing methods are operable to pass a given correlator according to (i) a specific resource invoked by a given transaction and (ii) a given protocol used to pass the given correlator; and

computer program instructions for passing a correlator in accordance with the selected service specific correlator passing system, wherein the correlator is a data structure used to pass information from one transaction to another for use in monitoring performance of transactions.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the computer program instructions further comprise computer program instructions for calling the invocation interface at the instrumentation point in the WSIF client.

15. The system of claim 9 wherein the computer program instructions further comprise computer program instructions for providing the correlation data for the IT resource to a user through a user interface.

16. The system of claim 9 wherein the computer program instructions further comprise computer program instructions for providing, to a user through a user interface, the correlation data for the IT resource in association with a name having semantics for the IT resource.